Dear All One of the World's famous Yoga Teachers Sri TKV Desikachar passed away at Chennai on 8 Aug 2016 and I have opened this thread to share information about his life , his teachingss and the impact he made to the Science of Yoga .I have my own experience which I will write later but right now sharing details from others who have been directly asscoiated with him and the impact he made in their lives . Though Sri Desikchar is no more alive , the Science of Yoga as refined and taught by him will continue to be spread through his books , as well as through the teachers trained by him .

Tirumalai Krishnamacharya Venkata Desikachar, better known as TKV Desikachar, son of the "Father of Modern Yoga," Sri Krishnamacharya, died Monday, August 8th, in Chennai, Tamil Nadu.

The third of six children, he was born in 1938 in Mysore, when his father still worked there for the local King Wadiyar IV, before Indian Independence.

He was preceded in death the three other great students of Krishnamacharya likewise acknowledged as the most prominent teachers of our era, BKS Iyengar (2014), KP Jois (2009) and Indra Devi (2002).

Though schooled in the asanas as a boy, he did not wholly buy into his father's teaching. Krishnamacharya once chased him up a tree when he refused his daily practice.

Desikachar pursued mechanical engineering in school and gave short shrift to yoga, planning a career in his chosen feild, but he turned to his father and the practice in 1961, becoming one of his most passionate advocates and long-studied apprentices.

The world-renowned Krishnamurti became Desikachar's student in 1965, and he traveled out of the country to instruct yoga for the first time that year--to Switzerland and England--under Krishnamurti's care. His first teaching in America brought him to Colgate University in 1976.

That same year, he founded the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram with two other signficant followers of his father, A. G. Mohan and Ramaswami Srivatsa. KYM offered sophisticated therapeutic approaches to the practice.Desikachar is greatly responsible for re-framing our understanding of the Yoga Sutras as a book that applies to everyday life, not just to the path of devoted, celibate yogis. He also made yoga therapy a respected wellness modality.

His eight books include the broad-based Heart of Yoga (1999), used in teacher training programs around the world, a biography of his father (Health, Healing and Beyond, 2005), and translations of the Yoga Sutras and Hatha Yoga Pradipika.Though he was a committed secularist, he was deeply interested in the interface between Western conceptions of religion and yoga, and he both lectured and published on the topic.

His engineering background gave him unique insights into the mechanics of the body and his skill in caring for sickness through yoga was world-renowned. The famous teachers Leslie Kaminoff, Mark Whitwell, Chase Bossart, Gary Kraftsow, Larry Payne, and Kate Holcombe all studied deeply with him.

He suffered from dementia in his last years.

The immediate cause of his death is not yet known.

Among family members who have made their mark on the practice, he is survived by his son, Kausthub, who teaches worldwide and has published a biography of his father, and by his younger brother, Sri T.K. Sribhashyam, who teaches yoga in Europe and is the author of The Emergence of Yoga, a book on yoga's history, philosophy and practice,

Classic speech by s gurumurthy on hindu spiritualism - This is a short one but clears lot of nonsense and misconceptions about the way Hindu family , Hindu Religious Organizations and Hindu Society works silently for the welfare of the society .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ABHSVYkIfY

Sri TKV Desikachar( 1938-2016) , founder of the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram ( KYM) passed away today ( 8 Aug 2016 ) in Chennai .One of my main inspirations to be on the path of Yoga was Sri TKV Desikachar's book "Heart of Yoga " .Though I was not part of the KYM Organization and all my Yoga learning was through the Sivananda Organization yet I learnt a lot from Sri TKV Desikachar's books and talks and I still read them to refine my knowledge and practice in the Science of Yoga . The world has missed a great Yoga Teacher in Sri TKV Desikchar and the loss is not just to his family or the KYM Institution but to the whole Yoga Community world over . Will later write a separate post on what I learnt from Sri TKV Desikchar .

To know that you are is natural, to know what you are is the result of much investigation.

You will have to explore the entire field of consciousness and go beyond it. For this you must find the right teacher and create the conditions needed for discovery.

Generally speaking, there are two ways: external and internal. Either you live with somebody who knows the Truth and submit yourself entirely to his guiding and molding influence, or you seek the inner guide and follow the inner light wherever it takes you.

In both cases your personal desires and fears must be disregarded. You learn either by proximity or by investigation, the passive or the active way. You either let yourself be carried by the river of life and love represented by your Guru, or you make your own efforts, guided by your inner star.

In both cases you must move on, you must be earnest. Rare are the people who are lucky to find somebody worthy of trust and love.

Most of them must take the hard way, the way of intelligence and understanding, of discrimination and detachment (viveka-vairagya). This is the way open to all.- I AM THAT ch. 66

Question: We know that the pleasures of this world are useless and even painful, yet we long for them. What is the way of ending that longing?

Bhagavan: Think of god and attachments will gradually drop from you. If you wait till all desires disappear to start your devotion and prayer, you will have to wait a very very long time indeed.- ?Guru Ramana?, S.S Cohen

AS: Bhagavan's famous instruction ?summa iru' [be still] is often misunderstood. It does not mean that you should be physically still; it means that you should always abide in the Self.

If there is too much physical stillness, tamoguna [a state of mental torpor] arises and predominates. In that state you will feel very sleepy and mentally dull. Rajoguna [a state of excessive mental activity], on the other hand, produces emotions and a mind which is restless.

In sattva guna [a state of mental quietness and clarity] there is stillness and harmony. If mental activity is necessary while one is in sattva guna it takes place. But for the rest of the time there is stillness. When tamoguna and rajoguna predominate, the Self cannot be felt. If sattvaguna predominates one experiences bliss, clarity and an absence of wandering thoughts. That is the stillness that Bhagavan was prescribing.